hexo-rs

A static site generator written in Rust, designed to be compatible with Hexo themes (EJS templates).

My blog is using Hexo, but I don't want to install Node.js and all the dependencies just to generate static files. So I wrote this project to generate Hexo sites using Rust.

This project was built entirely through vibe coding with AI!

Note: hexo-rs don't support all Hexo features, please read the "Limitations" section below.

Features

• Fast: generates sites faster than the Node.js version of Hexo
• Compatible: Supports most Hexo EJS themes
• Simple: Command-line interface is basically consistent with Hexo

Installation

cargo install hexo-rs

Or with cargo-binstall (faster, downloads prebuilt binary):

cargo binstall hexo-rs

Usage

# Generate static files
hexo-rs generate

# Start local server
hexo-rs server

# Clean generated files
hexo-rs clean

# Create new post
hexo-rs new "Post Title"

# List posts
hexo-rs list

Limitations

1. Stylus CSS Preprocessor

hexo-rs does not include a built-in Stylus compiler. If the theme uses .styl files, you need to:

Option 1: Install stylus

npm install -g stylus

hexo-rs will try to call npx stylus to compile, but this requires a Node.js environment.

Option 2: Pre-compile CSS (Recommended)

# Generate once using Node.js version of Hexo
npx hexo generate

# Copy the compiled CSS to the theme directory
cp public/css/style.css themes/your-theme/source/css/style.css

2. EJS Template Support

Most EJS syntax is supported, but the following features may not be fully compatible:

• Complex JavaScript expressions (executed using QuickJS engine)
• Some helper functions provided by Hexo plugins
• Complex parameter passing in <%- partial(...) %>

3. Unsupported Hexo Features

• Hexo plugin system
• Custom Generators
• Custom Helpers (only built-in helpers are supported)
• Deploy functionality (hexo deploy)
• Limited draft support

4. Markdown Rendering

Uses pulldown-cmark to render Markdown, which may have subtle differences from Hexo's default marked or markdown-it:

• Code highlighting uses syntect
• Some Hexo tag plugin syntax is not supported

5. Theme Configuration

The order of configuration items in theme configuration files (_config.yml) is preserved, but some complex YAML structures may be parsed differently.

Tested Themes

• vexo

Notes

1. Before first use: It's recommended to generate once with the Node.js version of Hexo to ensure the theme's CSS is compiled
2. Post Front Matter: Ensure the format is correct, recommended date format is YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss
3. File watching: hexo-rs server will automatically watch for file changes and regenerate
4. Debug mode: Use hexo-rs -d generate to view detailed logs

Development

# Development build
cargo build

# Release build
cargo build --release

# Run tests
cargo test

# Code linting
cargo clippy

License

MIT